Fiasco Playset

Contents

In 1963 a nuclear detonation took place under the Nevada desert. The bomb — altered by parties unknown — ripped through the fragile skein of normal space-time the whole visible universe occupies, opening a hole into something... stranger.

Beneath our reality, in realms so strange they defy science as we know it, someone or something has built tunnels, chambers, traps, lairs... The place alters itself inexorably and unpredictably; maps go stale, get rancid. The dangers from the environment are formidible, but the inhabitants of the dungeon are worse: there's no other word for them but monsters. Alright, there is another word — "Xenofauna" — but nobody uses that except in reports. Most of them don't live long when brought Upstairs. Most. There are things down there that can be far more insidious in their efforts to cross over.

If you're not careful, the place changes you too. The NATIVE SONS program uses these hybrids as trackers and guides in the hostile new frontier, and teams accompanied by them show dramatically higher success and lower mortality rates. The hybrids are stuck between upstairs and downstairs though — if they spend too much time in either world, they'll start to degenerate or sicken, go mad, or transform into something worse. They need to delve to survive.

So many lives have been lost.

But the thing that makes it all worthwhile — at least in the eyes of those in charge — is that apart from all the horrors this new world is filled with treasures and wonders which can, quite simply, do the impossible.

The government put a door and a lock onto the hole — ninety tons of steel and titanium strong enough to bounce nukes — and named it Project: LONG STAIR. There are three different bases inside: the rear echelon First Landing, the field support Second Landing, and the forward firebase of Third Landing. Even though other global powers have forged their own entrances, the world at large has been kept in the dark. A situation that might change at any moment. Alliances from the world above don't always hold down here, and every breach generates an ever increasing amount of so-called Fortean phenomena. Nothing yet as overt as monsters in the street, but probable hauntings, psychic events, missing time, UFO sightings, and even some semi-credible crypto-zoology. The most common are the voices -- weird, semi-audible hallucinations which almost makes sense. Voices that grow ever more coherent and less alien to those that pay too much attention.

Those who hide behind terminology name this hell hole "The Basement" or the "Subterrestrial Operational Theater".

Each player replaces one of their starting dice with a red one; white or black doesn't matter. Red dice are wild for scene resolution — they can be either positive
or negative at the discretion of the person Resolving. However, when a player receives a red die, the two players they share a relationship with swap any accumulated dice they have with each other.

ie., Darla resolves her scene and gives Billy the red die. Allan and Cathy have to give the other their dice pools. If she'd given it to Allan, she and Cathy would have swapped instead.

When it comes time for the Tilt and the Aftermath, red dice are determined by their face value when rolled. Odd versus Even, or High versus Low. The player going last gets to decide which three faces are black and which are white.

This playset works perfectly well with the standard Tilt table but I would recommend trying it with the custom Tilt table found in the Rat Patrol playset. Because even though the Brass won't admit it, you spend long enough in the Dungon you realise that something is pulling strings...